The Dancing has Begun
By Josh Resnek
With the results of the recent municipal election comes the new configuration of what works, what might work and what might not work at all.
Let’s start at the top.
Councilor Fred Capone has his eyes on the mayor’s office.
Whether he wants to publicly admit to this or not, his thinking, according to those who know him best, has him running against the mayor in a little less than two years.
Capone’s way of looking at it – whether he wins or loses – is that this is his time to make a move.
After many years on the council, his time has arrived.
His huge vote count in the election proves his citywide popularity and viability.
Standing in the way of this is the mayor.
The mayor just suffered through a dreary municipal election where every one of the candidates he aided or supported outright lost. His stranglehold on the political community has cracked. The damage is evident. He knows it.
His supporters know it. He is facing a brave new world.
Mind you, a cracked political outlook is not a total collapse but a cracked tooth can’t be repaired any more than a cracked political career that is entering a new phase. The cracked career can’t return to what it used to be. A cracked tooth must be pulled or a crown must be placed on it – and crowns are expensive and take quite a bit of preparation, pain and suffering.
Cracked teeth are agonizing.
Cracked political futures are just as unsettling.
The mayor is wounded but don’t yet count him out although his end is closer than it has been during the past 11 years.
Capone as a candidate against the mayor has already intimated he will not get down into the gutter with the mayor.
He knows the mayor. He knows what the mayor is all about. He offers a clear choice to voters.
He wants to run a campaign, his friends insist, that will be a highroad campaign, a highroad effort to dethrone the mayor.
Before the last election I would have thought such a strategy is the stuff of foolishness.
After watching how Councilor Mike McLaughlin roundly defeated the mayor’s best friend Al Lattanzi, his hand picked and supported candidate to get rid of Mike, it is now easy to see how such a high road campaign can work.
In other words, McLaughlin has showed how you don’t have to get down into the gutter with the mayor or his designees to trounce them at the polls.
In the months to come, Capone will likely develop a campaign strategy and protocol for this moment approaching that he believes is his moment.
In a changing landscape with the mayor’s veneer of impregnability cracked, anything can happen.
Now comes the rep and his questionable future now that Gerly Adrien topped the ticket in citywide balloting to gain a city council seat.
Adrien is ambitious. She has devoted followers and smart organizers and lots of Everett folks clamoring to see her do better for herself.
How would she do this?
Many political watchers claim she will run against the rep – again – but this time without Stat Smith standing in the way and dividing up the vote.
In such a one on one scenario, she defeats the rep no matter what he does trying to save his position.
Here’s how it broke down the last time around and how it might be next year.
In the 2018 primary the rep got 1968 votes – 42% of the vote. Adrien got 1800 votes – 39% of the vote.
Smith got 893 votes – 19% of the vote.
The folks who voted for Smith were not rep votes.
In addition, Adrien beat the rep in 7 out of 12 precincts.
Bad news for the rep.
Not bad news is that if he loses for rep to Adrien, he will run for her seat on the council and everything will be OK.
Then there is the talk about Adrien and or Stephanie Martins taking on Senator Sal.
What’s the chances of this?
Pretty good, according to some folks who pay close attention to such things.
Why? Because Senator Sal has an albatross around his neck called the city of Cambridge.
It is believed that a Ayanna Pressley type of candidate running an Ayanna Pressley type of campaign could blast Senator Sal out of office.
It is that kind of environment he is potentially facing.
I think he gets by this time but if these organized Cambridge types get going against him, he doesn’t have a chance.
He becomes Mike Capuano part 2.